


A Study in Mergers

by hrtiu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corporate, F/M, How Do I Tag, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 00:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13624296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrtiu/pseuds/hrtiu
Summary: Rey was perfectly content working as a data engineer at Resistance Semiconductors when Empire Semiconductors announced their acquisition of Resistance. Now not only does she have to worry about whether or not she'll be able to keep her job, but she also has to work with the consultants on the integration team, led by the irritable and demanding Kylo Ren. Modern Corporate AU. Also on FF.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whew. I am both nervous and excited about this story! This is a modern AU in essentially a corporate setting, mostly because I wanted to use some of my own work experiences into my writing. I have everything planned out and I’m pretty excited about the plot, but as this is a style of story I haven’t written before I’d especially appreciate feedback. Please let me know what you think!

Rey first heard rumors of the merger at the beginning of winter, right before Christmas. That time of year for Rey wasn’t a particularly special one. She no longer had family to visit, and work didn’t slow down much either. Even the weather was about the same as usual; Los Angeles had never been a place that marked the seasons in any sort of extravagant way. Ever since her grandfather’s death four years prior, her life had grown utterly predictable and painless. So little had been able to affect her pattern of living that when she first heard the rumors, it did not seem possible that they could be true, for it would break the precedent of constancy established by her past few years of living.

She’d been sitting at her desk at Resistance Semiconductors trying to find an open spot on her manager’s calendar to schedule her semi-annual performance review, when she got a text on her phone. She opened the text and saw that it was from Finn, her coworker who usually sat right across from her but was currently at a conference in San Francisco.

Rey, you didn’t hear it from me, but I heard that Empire is looking to buy out Resistance.

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head in disbelief as she typed her response.

No way. Mona would never sell.

Finn responded within a minute.

Let’s hope so.

Two months later it was officially announced: Empire Semiconductors would acquire Resistance Semiconductors for 30 billion dollars. Rey’s comfortable pattern was about to be interrupted in an irreversible, unexpected way.

 

 

* * *

 

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Rey looked up from her computer and across to Finn's cubicle.

“What?” she asked.

Finn snorted and shook his head ruefully.

“Did you see the announcement email that just got sent? So much for a fair and equitable merger process.”

Rey checked her emails and found that indeed, she did have a new email from corporate. She clicked on it, all while unconsciously holding her breath. Were there going to be layoffs? Were they closing any offices? She'd worked at Resistance Semiconductors ever since she'd graduated college, and she wasn't sure what she would do with herself if she was no longer there.

Hello Resistance and Empire colleagues!  
We are excited to announce the new executive team for Empire Semiconductors. We know with our combined resources and talent, this will be a new and improved Empire!

Rey's eyes scanned the list of names and quickly realized what had made Finn so upset. Empire and Resistance were similarly sized companies, if anything Resistance was more profitable, and they had been led to believe that former Resistance employees would have good representation in upper management. However, of the list of nine executive officer and VP’s in the email, only one was a Resistance employee.

“They are replacing Gale Ackbar?!” Rey said in alarm. “I thought if they kept anyone it would be him. He's been in magazines and won awards!”

“Tell me about it,” Finn said. “What does a person need to do around here to keep his job?”

“I suppose they technically bought us out, even though they're saying it's a merger…” Rey said. “Maybe it's fair they get most of the management positions.”

Finn snorted.

“I don't care if it's fair. I quit my job at Empire to work at Resistance. Their workplace was so oppressive, I just had to get out. I don't want to work at a company that ends up being exactly the same as the one I left.”

Rey shook her head and turned back to get her computer, where she was preparing a query of all of Resistance’s current employees for the transition team. The next half year before the merger was finalized were going to be rough. As one of the primary data engineers at Resistance, she was a keeper of knowledge and information, a gateway for anyone who wanted to know the hard numbers that told the truth of Resistance’s business. The outside consultants who had been brought in to help with the integration between the two companies were already sending her requests for data, so along with worrying about whether or not she'd keep her job, she’d also have to work late hours and pour her heart and soul into a merger she wished wasn't happening.

She checked her calendar, sighed, then shut her laptop.

“Well that sucks. And now I've got to meet with the transition team.”

Rey was really not looking forward to this meeting. The transition team had been hired from First Order Consulting, and while their firm had an excellent reputation for improving the bottom line, consultant intervention often meant big changes in the business, which often meant bad news for regular employees.

“Oh yeah, I met them yesterday. They honestly seemed like a bunch of jerks, coming in here and telling people who’ve worked here for decades what to do. And I don't even want to think about how much money Empire is paying them,” Finn said.

“I mean legally we kind of need to bring in an impartial third party, right?” wanting to walk into their meeting giving them the benefit of the doubt.

“Uh, yeah, impartial. Sure. Empire is the one who hired them, not us.”

Rey stood from her desk and walked over to Finn, placing a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. Finn was a pretty easy-going guy, and he didn’t usually get into negative funks like this.

“You ok, Finn? You seem tense.”

Ever since Finn's first day at Resistance, when he’d accidentally taken Rey’s lunch from the fridge and she’d accosted him in retaliation, they had been friends. It was funny how Rey’s anger at Finn’s supposed lunch theft had turned so quickly into friendship, but as soon as the misunderstanding was cleared up, Finn's magnetic personality made their friendship inevitable. Finn was funny, outgoing, fiercely loyal, and best of all, also worked on the data team with Rey. They were able to work together and complain together and bond through shared suffering, and Rey was grateful to have a friend like him. Especially since she no longer had any family to rely on.

“I’m fine,” Finn said, “just feeling a little stressed with all this uncertainty. You go ahead, or you’ll be late to your meeting.”

Rey frowned, not fully convinced that Finn was alright, then headed back to her desk to get her laptop. She really would be late if she lingered any longer, and she could talk more with Finn about this later. She slipped her laptop into her computer bag and headed for the conference room marked on her calendar.

 

* * *

 

A row of black suitcases, the kind that said, “I have expensive taste but am too classy to be flashy about it,” lined the small conference room, and three obnoxiously well-dressed people sat around the table, eyes glued to their laptops. Rey knocked on the open door as she walked into the room, drawing their attention.

The first of the three to stand, a tall, pale man perhaps in his early thirties, strode towards her and held out his hand. He was wearing a sharply tailored black suit with a white dress shirt and black tie. All the black matched his dark hair, which fell to his chin in a not-quite-curly mass. The suit was nice, but here in LA it wouldn’t really fit in anywhere but at an awards show.

“Rey Jackson? Kyle Ren. Pleasure to meet you.”

She accepted the proffered hand and he shook it exactly twice before stepping back for his coworkers to take their turn in the ritual.

“Katrina Phasma,” said an even taller woman with short, platinum blonde hair. She would have towered over Rey even if she hadn’t been wearing four-inch silver pumps.

“Hi, I’m Rey.”

The last member of the transition team followed shortly on Katrina’s heels. This man looked to be in his late twenties, with flaming red hair and a sneer still visible on his face despite his smile.

“Armitage Hux, at your service,” he said.

Funny name, she thought, though she had the sense not to say it out loud.

“I’m Rey, nice to meet you.”

The three moved back to their seats and sat down, and Rey found a chair for herself at the end of the table. She dug around in the pit of power adapters in the middle of the table for an outlet, and plugged in her laptop, then opened up a word processor to take notes. Rey looked up from the screen, ready for the meeting to start, but the other three occupants of the room remained glued to their respective workspaces. She opened up her calendar again and double-checked that this was the right time for the meeting, then cleared her throat in what she hoped was a subtle way. Had they already forgotten she was there?

Finally, Kyle decided to acknowledge her presence and looked up from his keyboard. The cessation of his typing seemed to signal to his coworkers that the meeting was about to start, so they also pulled their heads out of their computers. Apparently Gloomy McGothHair was the boss of this trio.

“Thanks for coming down,” Kyle said. “We’re part of the clean room integration team, so we’ll be handling data from both companies that most of the company is not allowed to see until after the merger is finalized. We were looking for somebody to be our go-to for Resistance data, and Amilyn Holdo recommended you. We’ll be working closely together to help prepare for the integration before the merger closes.”

“Yeah, Amilyn told me. I’m excited to be a part of the team,” Rey said, trying to force some enthusiasm into her voice. Because who wouldn’t be excited to work overtime, in a room with the windows blocked out for privacy, isolated from her other coworkers for six months?

“Great. We’ll need transaction-level sales data by business unit for the last three years by the end of the day,” Kyle said.

Rey’s mouth fell open.

“Excuse me?”

“We are working under a very tight deadline, and the board needs estimates for combined sales next year by noon tomorrow,” he said without batting an eye.

“It would be nice to have had some prior notice… I have other reports to finish for financial by tomorrow,” Rey said.

“It’s alright, Holdo understands this is top priority,” Kyle said, then he leaned forward and laced his fingers together in front of him, “I understand that this is short notice, but we were only asked for this data today as well. I heard you were the best. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

Rey bit back an angry retort and forced herself to recenter. It would not be good to start this working relationship with a shouting match, especially since they were going to be working together for so long.

“I’ll see what I can do, although I can’t promise turnaround this fast without advance notice,” she said, and she was already thinking about how to combine all the different tables with the information they were looking for in her head. They had changed reporting methods two years ago, so getting three years’ worth of data would require reconciling two different table structures and would take up significantly more time than one would think.

Rey was being perfectly reasonable, but she swore she saw a vein twitch in Kyle’s pale forehead. The twitch drew Rey’s attention to his features, and she realized for the first time that he had a long, slightly puckered scar on his face, running from just above his right eyebrow, past his eye and all the way down his cheek, eventually traveling down his neck and disappearing into his shirt. It didn’t fit with his polished black suit and tie look, almost reducing him to a Bond villain.

“Both Ron Palpatine and Mona Mothma are going to be at that meeting,” he said, naming the CEOs of both Empire and Resistance. “If I’m going to have the slides ready by noon, I need that data before I wake up. And I wake up quite early.”

Rey stared him down, refusing to let herself be pushed around. She knew plenty of people who were less than kind when under stress, but what kind of person behaved like this after just meeting for the first time? Were Resistance employees so insignificant to him that he simply couldn’t be bothered to be polite?

“Like I said, I’ll get you the data as soon as possible,” she said, carefully controlling her tone.

“Come on, Kylo, don’t go harassing our clients on the first day,” the man Rey already thought of as Hux said. “I’m sorry, Rey. We’re under a lot of pressure to deliver in the meeting tomorrow, but of course we understand the practical restraints you’re operating under. Why don’t you do as much as you can today and send us an update tonight?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Kyle (or perhaps Kylo?) said under his breath, and Hux laughed.

“Everyone calls you that, I don’t think you can avoid it now. Rey, what do you say?”

Rey looked at the shorter man, still put off by his general air of superiority, but finding an unlikely ally for the moment.

“That sounds reasonable. I’ll send you an update tonight at six.”

“If it’s not ready by then, send another update at nine,” Kylo said (if he didn’t like when people called him that, then that’s what she would call him), and Rey looked back at him with an icy stare. She considered protesting again, but held back. She should probably settle for this compromise.

“Fine. I’ll email at six, then again at nine.”

There was a brief silence, which was soon filled by the clacking of fingernails on keys as Katrina Phasma apparently lost interest in the standoff and went back to her laptop.

“Great,” Kylo eventually said, “well that was all we need today. There’s more to discuss, but we’re in fire drill mode right now, so we can do that tomorrow. Holdo said you’d be available to work with us here in the clean room on a regular basis starting tomorrow, so I hope to see you here tomorrow after the board meeting.”

“Yes, she told me. I’ll be here.”

“OK, well,” Kylo stood and offered his hand to her again, “I’m excited to work together.”

“I am excited to work with you, too,” Rey said before shaking his hand a little too tightly.

What an asshole.

\---

As soon as she walked through the door back to her cubicle, Rey was talking.

“Well, Finn, you were 100% right. Their team is basically cancerous and the next six months will be torture,” she said as she set her laptop on her desk and threw her bag into her chair.

“I'm sorry to hear that, because you're going to Austin on Monday to work with them the whole week,” said a voice that definitely did not belong to Finn.

Rey turned only to see her manager, Amilyn Holdo, standing in the door. Rey turned back to Finn and mouthed Why didn't you tell me she was here? He mouthed back I didn't have a chance. Rey faced Holdo again and tried to hide her embarrassment.

“Austin? To Empire’s headquarters?” Rey said.

“Yes. We're going to be working closely with Empire's data team over the next six months or so to integrate our systems, so you'll be getting pretty familiar with Austin. You're lucky! It's a really fun city.”

Rey couldn't quite suppress a grimace.

“It's not the city I'm worried about,” she muttered.

Holdo sighed.

“It sounds like your first meeting with the First Order folks didn't go so well.”

Well, I'm sure next week will go better,” Rey said.

“I certainly hope so, for your sake,” Holdo said. Then she stepped closer to Rey, her strict face falling into a look of compassion. “I know it can be hard, working with outside resources. I met them today and they seemed a little… intense. But they are here to help, and the work you do with them will make this merger possible. And I know nobody's excited about change, but Mona Mothma agreed to the merger because she thought it would be better for the company.”

Rey nodded repentantly at Holdo, the manager she'd always admired and wanted to impress.

“I understand, Amilyn. I'll do my best.”

“I know you will. That's why I recommended you,” Holdo said with a maternal smile. “Now I've got to get to a conference call, but I'll catch up with you guys later, ok?”

Finn and Rey waved their goodbyes. Rey opened up her laptop and checked her latest emails, not wanting to see the look of sympathy on Finn's face that would just make her feel worse.

“I'm sorry you have to work with those jerks, Rey.”

“It's fine,” Rey said, pressing shift-enter to send an email with a little more vigor than was strictly necessary. “Besides, maybe Austin will be fun.”

\---

Austin was not fun.

Rey repeated this thought to herself as she sat in the car on the way to Empire Semiconductors’ headquarters at the edge of the city. Sure, it was kind of cool to fly to a new city (it was only Rey's second time on a plane) and take taxis everywhere on the company's dime, but the novelty wore off quickly. Austin was a green, spread-out sort of place, very different from both LA and Bakersfield, where Rey had grown up. The city seemed warm and inviting from the car window, even through the grey mist of early morning rain, but it wasn’t an invitation Rey had had a chance to accept.

Maybe Holdo was right, and Austin was a fun city, but there was no way Rey would ever see any of Austin outside of her hotel room and the depressing basement conference room she worked in, what with the kind of hours she'd been pulling.

Visible bags were beginning to form under Rey's eyes, and her eyes stung as she checked her phone for new emails, finding one from her new best buddy Kylo Ren.

Hi Rey,

Thank you for the pull of active employees and their ID’s. Please add manager names, positions, locations, and ID’s and resend by noon.

-Kyle

The email had been sent at five that morning. Rey rubbed her eyes and checked the sent time again, but it stayed the same. 5:05 AM.

What a freak, she thought to herself. And if he wanted manager information why didn't he just tell me in the first place?

If it was just for one week then it would have been easier to grin and bear it, but Holdo had told her soon after she got to Austin that her being there was making a huge difference, and that she'd be going to Austin every week for the foreseeable future.

The elevator seemed to move impossible slow as Rey made her way down to the basement, both annoyed by the unreasonable amount of time it took to go three floors and grateful to the ancient beast for delaying the start of her workday. Eventually the elevator creaked to a stop on her floor, and she reached the team room and was in her chair by 8:15. All three of the First Order consultants were already there.

“Good morning, Rey,” Kylo said without looking up from his screen.

“Good morning,” Rey responded.

“Did you get my email about the manager data?” he asked.

Straight to business, as always.

“Yes. I should be able to get it to you by noon.”

“Great.”

That was the extent of Kylo’s small talk. Rey turned on her laptop and got started on the pull Kylo had emailed about. Getting things to the irritable consultant quickly was the only way Rey had discovered so far to make him tolerable to work with. A few times Rey had managed to get him the data he needed hours before he expected it, and surprising him with her skill was always immensely satisfying.

The door to the team room opened abruptly, and Rey looked up to see an older, bald man with gnarled, grizzled features enter the room, pulling a sleek-yet-squeaky suitcase behind him. His black knee-length pea coat screamed money almost as much as the gleaming Rolex on his wrist. Kylo, Katrina, and Hux all sat up straighter in their chairs, and if Rey didn’t know any better she’d think that Hux actually looked a little scared.

“Sean, nice to see you!” Kylo said in a weirdly enthusiastic voice.

Kylo stood and walked towards the man with his arm outstretched, and the man shook it with just a hint of disgust.

“Ren,” he said by way of greeting. “Hux. Phasma.”

He nodded at the other two consultants in turn as he said their names (apparently they weren’t important enough to merit one of his “I’d really rather not be touching you” handshakes), then turned towards Rey, who had already stood to be introduced.

“Rey, this is Sean Snoke, you could say he is our team leader. Sean, this is Rey Jackson. She’s our data expert from the Resistance side,” Kyle said.

“Charmed to meet you, Rey,” Sean said as he shook her hand.

The words were kind, and his tone polite, but somehow the platitudes felt sinister coming from his shriveled mouth, leaving a sick feeling in Rey’s stomach. She hoped Sean Snoke would not come around often.

“I have to run to a meeting with Palpatine, but I’ll be back to get lunch with you guys, alright?” Sean said, and his underlings all nodded eagerly. Rey almost felt embarrassed for them, at their evident desperation to please.

Sean left the room, and Rey could almost hear the collective breath of air released by all three of the consultants in the room.

“Why didn’t you tell us Snoke was coming?” Hux immediately snapped at Kylo.

“Yes,” Katrina drawled, “I’d rather not be surprised by a Partner like that.”

“I didn’t know he was coming,” said Kylo with evident frustration and not a little bit of nerves.

Rey looked around at them in confusion. How on earth was this one person throwing them all off so much? Was he a Harbinger of the Apocalypse?

“Uh, is it bad that he’s here?” Rey asked, and Hux, Kyle, and Katrina all turned to her in surprise, apparently having forgotten she was there.

Hux immediately broke into a false smile.

“Of course not! Partners at First Order Consulting are experts with years and years of experience, and Sean specifically has worked on hundreds of mergers. He’s here to help.”

“Ok,” Rey said, nodding doubtfully. Whoever this guy was, all three of the consultants seemed terrified of him.

Nobody seemed eager to share any more information about the old man, so Rey decided to let them have their secrets. She put in her headphones and soon she was in the groove, letting the outside world fade away as she dug up the files Kyle had asked for and wrote the code to combine them. She loved when work felt like this: like solving a complex puzzle piece by piece, or perhaps more like building each puzzle piece by hand, and then fitting them together. Knowing that your colleagues rely on you to know what’s going on at the company. She was so lost in her work that she soon lost track of time. The next time she looked at the clock, it was already ten, and she really needed to go to the bathroom.

She got up from her chair, and saw that only she and Katrina were still in the room, the two men probably attending some meeting or other. She left the room and walked down the taupe, fluorescent-lit halls towards the bathroom. No natural light here in the basement. At the end of the hall she was about to turn right to the ladies room, but she heard a familiar voice emanating from a small conference room off to the left. She paused, considered for a moment, then walked towards the sound with light feet.

“...things are going well so far-” she recognized Kylo’s voice floating down the hallway.

In part for privacy reasons, and in part because there was so much available space, the team had ended up not only in the basement of Empire Semiconductors, but in the second basement. The second basement was below the first one, where Rey had heard the IT team worked, and was mostly empty besides them and the occasional janitor. This was the only reason Rey could think of that the two men would be speaking in the conference room with the door open, unconcerned about listening ears.

“-Going well? Are you being truthful with me, Ren?” said Sean.

“O-of course! We received excellent feedback after the board meeting last week-”

“Then what’s this I hear about you antagonizing clients? Why am I getting complaints about your behavior?” Snoke’s voice floated down the hall, and once again the menacing undercurrent to his voice belied the mildness of his words.

Rey took a moment to revel in the satisfaction of hearing Kylo chewed out on her behalf, then took a few steps closer to the room, eager to hear more.

“I-I was just trying to get the data we needed for the board meeting in time. You insisted to me several times that we had to have that information ready in time,” Kylo stuttered.

“Ren,” Sean said in a long-suffering tone, “You have always been excellent at meeting deadlines and pushing yourself and others to get things done. But you have to do it with at least a veneer of kindness.”

“I am sorry. I will do better, I swear,” Kylo said, and the desperation in his voice started to make Rey uncomfortable. She’d wanted him to eat his just desserts for being such a jerk, but now that it was actually happening she just felt bad for him.

“I understand your… situation, Ben. But if you can’t learn to control your anger and limit your volatility, I will have to remove you from this project. And I don’t need to remind you how that will look on your performance review when you are before the promotions committee.”

Ben? Thought Rey in confusion. I thought his name was Kyle.

“That won’t be necessary. I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t.”

Rey did an about face and headed back towards the ladies bathroom, suspecting that the meeting upon which she was eavesdropping was about to end. She’d prefer not to be found loitering in the halls.

By the time Rey went to the restroom and made it back to the team room, Kylo was also back. He sat hunched over in his seat, looking as intense and brooding as ever, but Rey could detect a slight quiver to his lip. It was pathetic. And it made Rey a little sad.

She threw herself back into her work and, if nothing else to stop that quiver, finished pulling the dataset Ren needed by eleven, a full hour before his deadline. She emailed him the link to the file, then mentally patted herself on the back for finishing it so fast, knowing she would get no such validation from anyone else.

A buzzing from Kylo’s phone on the desk told Rey that her message had been received, and she watched as Kylo’s eyes flitted over his screen, presumably reading the message she’d just sent. He looked up from his screen, and his eyes met hers for a brief moment.

“Thank you, Rey,” he said, voice a little rough and textured.

She maintained eye contact as she responded, “You’re welcome,” but looked away as soon as the polite phrase left her mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Rey flew back to Los Angeles on Thursday night, and though it was only her third time on a plane, she was already sick of it. Resistance was covering her travel costs, but she still hated herself for taking a taxi home on principle. It was late enough, though, that even if she’d wanted to take public transportation, it wouldn’t have been very practical.

 

As soon as she crossed the threshold of her one-bedroom, carpeted apartment, she dropped her bag on the floor, set her suitcase next to it, and fell onto her couch. It was two in the morning, she was completely exhausted, and she still had a full day of work to do tomorrow. Her phone emitted that pleasant, deceptively harmless tone alerting her to a new email, and she groaned as she dug the phone out of her back pocket and held the screen up to her bleary eyes.

 

_Rey,_

 

_The sales numbers you sent me earlier today do not match the numbers from last week. What is the source of this discrepancy? Need answers by tomorrow morning_ _—_ _getting questions from VP’s._

 

_-Kyle_

 

She threw her phone onto the ground, careful to aim at a pile of blankets so her venting wouldn’t do any permanent damage, and screamed into the cushion.

 

“I hate that man! I am going to sleep right now and nothing he says can stop me!”

 

Her shout was muffled by the cushion, but she felt better for having really put her heart into it. She lay there, inert, for several minutes, just breathing. Eventually she convinced herself it was worth the effort to brush her teeth, put on her pajamas, and get in bed, and as she pushed herself up with her arms her face grew level with the picture of her grandfather on her end table.

 

Grandpa Ben was smiling, the smile deepening the laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. He was already quite old when Rey had taken this photo, but the Alzheimer's hadn’t really gotten that bad yet. He would be disappointed in Rey right now. He’d taught her to be charitable and loving towards everyone, even when they did not return the favor.

 

“Rey,” he’d often say to her, “it is not good for the soul to harbor feelings of hate in your heart. Even if you can’t get yourself to do it for the other person, do it for yourself.”

 

_OK, grandpa. I’ll try my best._

 

Rey groaned aloud, knowing this decision meant she was still several hours away from sleep. She rolled into a sitting position and pulled her laptop out of her bag. The consultants had also gone back to their home offices for the weekend, and thanks to a particularly obnoxious argument between Kylo and Hux about which city in the US had the best sushi, Rey knew Kylo’s office was in New York City. That meant he’d be three hours ahead of her the next morning, so she probably couldn’t afford to try and wake up early to finish his request before he got started for the day.

 

As she waited for her computer to boot up, Rey tried to put a positive spin on the situation. It’s not as if she wasn’t used to working hard, used to giving her all to something. Grandpa Ben’s Alzheimer’s had taken a turn for the worse when Rey was still in high school, and by the time she was sixteen she had been more his caretaker than he hers. If she could finish high school, get into college (she was the first person in her family to do so, to her knowledge), and take care of her grandpa all on her own, she could handle a guy being a jerk at work.

 

Her computer finally finished booting up, and Rey connected to the database to begin her investigation. Before she typed anything, though, she took a moment to give herself a mental pep-talk.

 

_You can do this, Rey. You can do hard things._

 

It was 4:00 AM before Rey resolved the discrepancies Kylo pointed out. She sent her explanation email, then fell asleep right on her couch, still dressed in her slacks, blouse, and blazer.

 

* * *

 

The next several weeks passed in much the same way: Rey working long hours to satisfy both the demands of her normal workload and the never-ending stream of requests coming from the First Order team. Rey flew to Austin every Monday morning, then flew back every Thursday night (sometimes on Friday if things were especially busy). She figured this schedule wasn’t as hard on her as it might be on other people, since she didn’t have a husband or kids that she wasn’t seeing each night. Still, having lacked in close family members for most of her life, Rey had worked hard to develop friendships to help fill the void left by her parents and departed grandfather, and it was important to her to maintain those relationships. On weekends she frequently watched movies, cooked, or played board games with Finn, or Rose and Poe, two of her friends from college. They were her family now, and she knew she would be willing to do anything for them, as they would for her.

 

Lately, however, she was so tired by the time she made it home on Thursday night that she didn’t feel like hanging out with anyone on the weekends. She’d spend most of the weekend in bed, either sleeping, eating, or watching Netflix. It always felt immensely satisfying in the moment, but when Sunday night arrived and she realized she hadn’t really dont anything with her weekend, the void in her heart would feel even emptier than normal. She’d always secretly bristled at kids who pushed away their loving posters, or at parents who never made time to be with their families, and now she was doing the exact same thing. Rey was aware of the bad habits she was developing, and could already see the initial signs of damage done to her friendships, but it was difficult to break out of the cycle.

 

A reprieve was granted her a month later when a conference at the Empire headquarters necessitated Finn’s presence in Austin. Finally, Rey would both be able to spend more time with him, and also have an ally in her dingy conference room behind enemy lines.

 

Having Finn in Austin made everything so much now bearable. When Hux was being insufferable or Phasma was being snobby or Kylo was being… Kylo, Finn would roll his eyes and make faces at Rey behind their backs, making it hard for her not to laugh.

 

He was also helping simply in terms of workload. Before, she'd still been able to send Finn requests if she was at full capacity, but having him physically present sped everything up, and allowed him to pick up the slack even when it wasn't an emergency.

 

Also, for some reason whenever she and Finn were on a roll, it seemed to royally piss off Kylo, which pleased Rey greatly. She had no idea why them doing a good job would make him upset; he was probably so well-acquainted with misery that seeing other people happy was off-putting.

 

By Wednesday of the week of Finn’s trip, Finn had picked up on Kylo’s hostility and was returning it in full force. Rey tried to keep things calm; she was the one who would still be working in the same room as the First Order folks after this week, after all. Still, sometimes it was quite a struggle.

 

Wednesday morning started off civil, although that was probably mostly because both Finn and Rey were deeply entrenched in putting together a report for financial, and the morning passed by with barely a word spoken in the team room. After several hours of grinding, Rey finished up the final formatting touches on the report and sent it to financial with a warm sense of satisfaction.

 

“Done!” she announced to the room.

 

“We are just _destroying_ these reports, Rey!” Finn said, rolling his chair closer to her to offer a celebratory high-five.

 

Rey returned it enthusiastically, and Finn grabbed his computer and sat it down right next to her.

 

“Ok, we deserve a break. The trailer for the new Bourne movie just came out. Want to see it?” Finn said with a broad grin. They both were big fans.

 

Rey was about to turn him down, then looked down at her computer clock. She had been working for three hours straight without food, water, or even standing up. She had earned a break.

 

“Sure,” she said.

 

Finn clicked play and the trailer started, all dark blues, eerie greens, and gloomy blacks. Strange whispers and muffled voices emanated from the speakers, but the sound was barely audible. Finn turned up the volume, but Rey still couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. All of a sudden Jason Bourne's face appeared in the screen, looking desperate and dangerous and holding a gun, and the loud crack of gunfire burst from the speakers of Finn’s laptop.

 

Rey jumped a little and Finn paused the video, then they looked at each other and almost started chuckling.

 

“I guess you’re not supposed to be able to hear what they’re saying,” Rey said.

 

“Yeah,” Finn laughed.

 

Finn returned the volume to a more appropriate decibel and was about to press play again when someone further down the table slammed their laptop shut.

 

Rey looked up and saw Kylo rise from his seat, gripping the end of the table with white knuckles. He turned to face Finn and Rey, and he looked livid.

 

“If you're not going to do work, please leave our team room,” he said, voice tight.

 

“Look, man, we were just taking a quick break and I accidentally had the volume on too loud-” Finn said, but Kylo cut him off.

 

“Out. Now.”

 

Finn rose, his fists tight at his side, and he had this look on his face like he was about to punch Kylo in the face. Rey grimaced and rose as well, putting a hand on his arm to calm him.

 

“Finn, why don’t you go get us some coffee?” she said, hoping a walk to the cafe and back would give him a chance to cool down.

 

Finn glanced at her, eyes still blazing, but cooled at her entreating look.

 

“Fine. I’ll get your regular.”

 

“Can you get me one, too?” Kylo asked, “an espresso, please.”

 

Rey turned towards Kylo so Finn could not see her face and raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully. Was he seriously doing this?

 

Thankfully, Finn just glared at the man and nodded, teeth clenched, before he stalked from the room.

 

Rey  pursed her lips and glared at Kylo.

 

“Did you really have to antagonize him like that? It was an accident, after all,” she said.

 

“This is a team room. This is where we do _work_ , not watch movies,” Kylo replied bitingly.

 

Rey just rolled her eyes and returned to her computer, not willing to expend any more energy on Kylo when there was no chance he would alter his behavior. She glanced up at him again to ask him what column he wanted her to use for revenue, but before the words left her mouth she was distracted by the sight of his hands trembling over his keys. He wasn’t typing anything, despite the focused way he stared at his computer screen. In fact his pupils did not move at all, as if his eyes remained completely fixed on a single pixel in the middle of his computer screen, and his wrists floated a centimeter above the keyboard, unmoving except for the slight but visible shake.

 

“Kyle?” she said, opting not to use his semi-mocking nickname in order to foster good will, “...Maybe you shouldn’t have any more coffee. Your hands are shaking,” Rey said.

 

Kylo’s eyes snapped up to hers and he stood abruptly.

 

“I’m fine. I’m going for a walk. Text me if you need anything.”

 

He put on his jacket and stuffed his phone into his pocket, then fled the room.

 

Rey just blinked after him, mouth hanging open a little.

 

“Was it something I said?” she said to no one in particular.

 

“Don’t worry about it. He gets like this sometime,” Katrina responded. “Just give him some time to cool off and he’ll be fine.”

 

Rey focused on the tall woman. She usually kept to herself and Rey was surprised that she’d answered at all.

 

“How do you work with him all the time? He’s just so… abrasive,” Rey asked, genuinely mystified.

 

Katrina just shrugged.

 

“He can be intense, but he always tells you exactly what he expects and he gets amazing results. Many clients request him specifically.”

 

“People _request_ him?” Rey said incredulously.

 

“Yeah. Like I said, painful process, amazing results. Besides, he works very hard. I’ve never started working before him or stopped working after.”

 

“That’s because he’s _nuts_! Nobody should work that long.”

 

“Maybe,” was all Katrina said in response, then her platinum head was back in her laptop, signalling the end of her loquaciousness.

 

Finn came back into the room back first, hands full of the three coffees he’d fetched for himself, Kylo, and Rey.

 

“Never fear, coffee is here!” he said, then turned around with a grin.

 

He handed Rey her coffee and set Kylo’s down in front of his empty seat.

 

“Where’s our Supreme Leader Kyle?” he asked as he sat down, nursing his own drink.

 

“I don’t know. He went for a walk or something,” Rey said.

 

“Can’t say I mind,” Finn replied dryly, then took another big sip of his coffee.

 

He set the cup down then looked at Rey, who was still feeling troubled by Kylo’s unusually irritable (even for him) behavior.

 

“Hey. You doing alright?” Finn asked.

 

“Yeah,” she said, sending him a smile she hoped was convincing. “My workload is heavy but no heavier than usual.”

 

“Well, if you think you have time we should do something fun tonight. Maybe eat a cheap lunch or something then blow our entire per diem at a fancy restaurant. I’m only in Austin this week! We gotta live it up!”

 

Rey smiled at Finn. He always got her and their group of friends to go out and lead interesting lives. If left to her own devices she’d probably just go back to their hotel and sleep, but if she did that _every_ night she’d never see any of Austin. Besides, they’d each been given $60 a day just to spend on food, and if they saved it all for dinner, they’d really be able to get something nice.

 

“Sure, sounds good! Pick a place and we’ll go.”

 

Finn smirked at her.

 

“Rey Jackson, we are going to have the night of our lives.”

 

* * *

 

The restaurant was Tex-Mex, but it was _fancy_ Tex-Mex. The lighting was dim, the furniture made from some dark, heavy wood, and trendy succulents decorated the tables. The place was packed, but Finn had thought to get a reservation, so the host took them to their seats right away.

 

“So… we're from Los Angeles, why would we get Mexican food anywhere else? Except maybe San Diego or Mexico,” she said lightheartedly as she took her seat.

 

“Rey. This is _Tex-Mex_. It's a whole different animal.”

 

Rey conceded his point as they approached their table, though she privately wondered how much better “Tex-Mex” could be. Her understanding was that its primary distinguishing feature was the Velveeta-esque cheese dip known as queso, and that didn’t seem particularly appealing to her. Despite these reservations, Rey was fully committed to giving Tex-Mex a chance as the waiter handed them menus, and poured water.

 

After some discussion and study, Finn ordered the chile con carne while Rey got chicken enchiladas. They also ordered some chips and queso, because as Rey so eloquently put it, “I can’t tell anyone how gross queso is without trying it first.”

 

Of course, Rey had to eat her words when she tried the questo and found it, against all expectations, to be strangely addicting. Finn and Rey fought over the last few chips and chatted, and Rey was internally immensely relieved to see that the last month or so of hermetic living had not done any permanent damage to their friendship. Mostly they talked about Rose, Rey’s college friend on whom Finn was developing a crush. Rey was thrilled about the crush, since she happened to know the feeling was mutual. She also suspected that Finn’s feelings had initially tended towards Rey instead, and she felt a little guilty at the relief she got from knowing that Finn was over that particular attachment.

 

“I don’t know, Rey. She’s cute, and she’s _so_ sweet… But I’ve known that she likes me for forever. What if I’m just… settling?” Finn asked.

 

“First of all, no is _settling_ when they are with Rose,” Rey said, and Finn started to offer a hasty apology, but Rey cut him off,” and second, Kathy from accounting has also liked you for forever, but you’ve never even once considered going out with her.”

 

“True…” Finn said, with a tilt of his head.

 

Rey was about to continue on her roll of good-advice-giving, when a sound from across the restaurant somehow cut through the low roar of clinking plates and dinner conversation.

 

“-Twenty-four hours! I kid you not! I was stuck in the Denver airport for twenty-four hours!”

 

Finn and Rey both turned their heads towards the sound and their eyes widened in tandem as they recognized the speaker.

 

Hux was talking animatedly, waving his hands around and bringing his wine dangerously close to escaping the confines of its glass. He was drunk—that much was obvious. He was sitting with his other First Order colleagues, and the feast laid out before them looked like they had ordered the entire menu. An empty bottle of wine sat next to the one Hux was currently working on, and a couple of half-eaten desserts the group had seemingly lost interest in languished forlornly on their table. Kylo sat next to Snoke with his arms crossed and his face grim, while Katrina sat next to Hux. Katrina looked bored, and Snoke mildly amused.

 

Kylo looked away from Hux with a slight roll of his eyes, and in the process his gaze happened to pass by Rey. His brow furrowed, and he seemed to flush a little, looking embarrassed for perhaps the first time Rey could remember.

 

Rey looked away, as if Kylo’s embarrassment were contagious, and she turned back to Finn with a huff.

 

“Can you believe them? We’re all worrying about layoffs and they’re getting drunk and holding feasts,” Rey said.

 

“Yeah… But I mean, we’re here too, right?” Finn said.

 

Part of Rey was proud of Finn for trying to be generous with the consultants for whom he clearly held so little love, but right now Rey just wanted to complain.

 

“No, you don’t know. I hear them talking about it, and they go out to eat together all the time. We saved our per diem to be able to afford this, but they go to fancy places pretty much every week,” Rey said, feeling the righteous anger bubble up in her.

 

“I mean, I’m on your side, Rey. It’s pretty frustrating that we know more about what we’re doing than they do, but they get paid so much more.”

 

“It’s not even about the money,” Rey said, “It’s the extravagance, the waste. My grandpa and I had _nothing_ , so it’s always hard to see people not appreciating what they have.”

 

“Yeah,” Finn said, his voice growing soft. Finn always gave her space to talk whenever she brought up her childhood, which was rarely. He was a good friend like that.

 

“I just felt so trapped. I needed help, but I knew if I told anyone how bad Grandpa was, they’d take me away from him. So I just had to act like everything was fine while Grandpa Ben got sicker and sicker. Some weeks we had ten dollars for groceries. Ten dollars! Ten dollars probably wouldn’t even pay for one of their little half-eaten desserts.”

 

Rey folder her arms over her stomach and hunched over them, while Finn reached across the table and lay a hand on her forearm.

 

“I’m sorry, Rey. And I’m sorry you have to keep working here for so much longer.”

 

Rey let out a long breath, her rant having burnt up a lot of her angry energy.

 

“It’s fine. I’ll manage. It just gets to me sometimes. They talk about their fancy lifestyle all the time, taking planes everywhere, never taking public transportation, buying random stuff at the airport without even looking at how much it costs. They talk about all this stuff like it’s a _good_  thing. And right now, I’m living that same kind of life. I might not have as big of a budget as they do, but I’ve been flying every week and staying in hotels and taking cars and all of that, and I can tell you _it sucks._ People think they want all these cool perks and this globetrotting lifestyle, but all I really want is a calm, peaceful life with a family who loves me.”

 

“I know, Rey,” Finn said sympathetically.

 

And Finn _did_ know. He hadn’t come from exactly the same kind of background, but growing up in the foster care system had taught Finn many of the same harsh lessons life had taught Rey.

 

“And you do have a great life and people who love you. It might not be calm and peaceful right now but it will be soon,” Finn said.

 

“Finn,” Rey said, false reproach in her strict tone, “what right do you have to be such a good friend?”

 

Finn gave a casual shrug.

 

“I don't have the right, I just do it anyway. I'm such a good friend, in fact, that I'm already figuring out what we'll be doing next.”

 

“Next?”

 

“Yeah, next. I’ve started reaching out to other companies who are offering similar positions to what we're doing now, if you’re interested.”

 

“Really?” Rey said, “You’re thinking of leaving Resistance?”

 

“I don’t _want_ to, but if they’re going to be cutting employees, I want to be prepared. Know what my options are. You should do the same.”

 

Finn brought his hand back to his side of the table.

 

“But you should know, Rey, that no matter what happens with our jobs, we’ll still be family,” he said.

 

* * *

 

Thursday was always a good day, because it was the day Rey got to go home. She and Finn entered the team room together, suitcases in tow, and Rey had a big smile on her face.

 

“Good morning!” she said with bright nods to the three consultants already in the room.

 

Katrina and Kylo nodded back, but Hux just squeezed his eyes shut and continued rubbing his temples.

 

“Finn, Rey, I’d actually like to speak with you two,” Kylo said as Rey was putting her laptop down. “Do you have a minute?”

 

“Sure,” Rey and Finn both said, and Rey started to take her laptop with her when Kylo stopped her.

 

“It will just be a minute. You don’t need to bring anything.”

 

Rey and Finn followed Kylo down the hall and shot each other questioning looks behind Kylo’s back. They reached a small conference room,  where Kylo turned towards them and started speaking.

 

“I just wanted to apologize for last night, at the restaurant,” he said. “It is our aim to always be professional, even when we aren’t at the client site, and our behavior last night was… less than ideal.”

 

Rey was at a loss for words. Of all of the things she had thought he might say, she had not even considered any sort of apology as an option. And to be honest, he didn’t really have anything to apologize for. Hux had been an ongoing drink, but in general fancy business dinners were pretty normal, especially in his line of work.

 

Rey looked at Finn and he seemed just as flummoxed as she.

 

“You don’t need to apologize, Kylo,” Rey saw his eye twitch a little, and realized that she’d used his nickname again. “Kyle. You don’t have to apologize. Your team didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

Kylo’s mouth tightened.

 

“Perhaps not. I could tell it didn’t sit well with you two, though,” he said.  


Both Rey and Finn didn’t respond for an awkwardly long moment, neither quite knowing what to say. It seemed like something not worth apologizing over, but they also couldn’t disagree with Kylo that his team’s actions had bothered them. It was just so odd that of all of the rude and otherwise jerk-like behavior Kylo had exhibited over the past couple of months, _this_ would be the thing he apologized for.

 

“Well, we appreciate your apology. Thank you, Kyle,” Rey finally said.

 

“Yeah, thanks man,” Finn agreed.

 

“Of course,” Kylo said with a solemn nod.

 

The three of them all headed back to the team room together in silence, and business continued as usual. That night Rey and Finn took the same flight back to LA and hugged goodbye when they separated at the airport. It had been an excellent week, but Rey was feeling a little melancholy at the prospect of heading back to Austin the next week alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please comment and let me know what you think! I’m a little bummed right now because I haven’t had to travel for work for a couple months now, but I just started travelling again every week :/ Writing this story is starting to feel too real :o


	3. Chapter 3

The months passed, and the heat in Austin increased in both temperature and oppressive humidity. Rey fell into an acceptable, somewhat sustainable pattern. She usually didn’t have to work on weekends, and she even managed to get herself to spend at least one evening a week out with friends. The work was wearing her down little by little, but by her calculations she’d be able to make it until the close of the merger in October without completely burning out. After that, she told herself regularly, she was going to take a long and well-deserved vacation. Maybe to somewhere exotic, like Costa Rica. She had never left the states before.

 

During the long days and nights spent in the basement of Empire Semiconductors, Rey came to know the First Order consultants quite well. Katrina Phasma was probably her favorite. The woman wasn’t exactly nice, but she was disciplined, level-headed, and didn’t stand for either of her coworkers’ nonsense. Hux was an aspirational sycophant: he had all the intention in the world of flattering and brown-nosing, but he was no good at feigning admiration, and his default attitude towards others was contempt. He didn’t much bother Rey, though, mostly because she was enough beneath him to escape his notice. Kylo was a little more difficult to pin down. At times he seemed a simple bully, an angry man who got too much satisfaction from having authority over other people. Every once in a while, though, he seemed the softest of the three First Order goonies. It was as if he wore a mask that was demanding and hostile, but when it cracked she caught glimpses of a person on the verge of falling apart.

 

The more Rey tried to please Kylo, the more he pushed her, and it was driving her crazy. He demanded the impossible, and once she killed herself to get it done, the impossible was the new standard. With each email demanding turnaround in only a matter of hours, or asking for obscure and ancient datasets somewhere in the dusty corners of Resistance’s database, she felt her formidable patience growing thinner and thinner. Rey was going to snap soon, she could feel it in her bones. In mid-August, the uncomfortable weather combined with the increasing workload as the close of the merger approached and brought the inevitable to a head.

 

It was eight at night, and Rey had busted her butt to get Kylo’s data request done early so she’d have the rest of the evening to prepare a map of Resistance’s database architecture for Don Mitaka, Empire’s database engineer. Aside from helping the First Order consultants out with their data questions, Rey also needed to help Empire actually combine their database with Resistance’s for when their companies were well and truly merged, and that was a monumental task in and of itself. She was expecting a late night, but planned to leave the team room to work from her hotel room as soon as she got a chance. She could only handle the stuffy air in the basement room for so long.

 

“Ren, I just got notes back from Snoke on the latest deck. Do these numbers only include North America?” Katrina asked, breaking Rey’s concentration.

 

“Yes,” Kylo responded distractedly, not looking up from his computer, “that’s what he asked for yesterday.”

 

“Well, he’s changed his mind. He wants NA, APAC, LATAM, and EMEA, each with their own page.”

 

Kylo cursed under his breath, then shut his eyes and propped his head up against one open palm.

 

“We don’t have time for that. We’ll give it to them if they ask in the meeting tomorrow,” Kylo said.

 

“Do you want to tell him or should I?” Katrina said with a raised eyebrow. 

 

Rey knew the consultants well enough to understand the joke: no one said no to Sean Snoke.

 

Kylo let out a huff of frustrated and tightened his fist, slamming it down on the table. Then he turned to Rey.

 

“Rey. We need the same revenue analysis you sent us earlier today, but for every region. We need it by tomorrow morning.”

 

Rey should have seen the request coming, considering the conversation she’d just been listening to, but somehow it still came as a surprise. Her exhausted brain took a moment to register the all-nighter he was asking her to pull, and she just stared at him blankly. He returned her stare, expression serious and calm.

 

“No,” she finally said.

 

“Excuse me?” Kylo said, his mouth doing a funny little twist she’d seen before when his mask was cracking.

 

“I’m not going to stay up all night tonight. I’ve slept six hours in the past three days. I’m not going to do it,” Rey said, her certainty increasing the more she spoke.

 

Hux and Katrina sat still in their seats, their mouths sewed shut. They exchanged looks, but Rey didn’t care. She was in the right. She’d given everything she could to this stupid team for the past five months, and she had reached her limit.

 

“Mona Mothma and Ron Palpatine will both be at that meeting, Rey. We need those slides. I’m not going to ask again,” Kylo said, his voice tight with anger.

 

“I don’t care,” Rey said, rising from her seat for emphasis. “The meeting will go fine with the slides you already have. If they really need those other regions, then I’ll prepare it for them tomorrow. But now, I am going to go back to my hotel, and get some sleep.”

 

She slammed her laptop down and shoved it into her bag, then grabbed her notebook, pens, and phone, sweeping them into the outside pocket of her laptop bag. Kylo stood, too, his mask almost completely shattered.

 

“Are you serious right now? You’re going to just refuse? Amilyn will be hearing about this. Don’t think your lazy attitude will go without consequences!” He was practically shouting.

 

“Lazy?” Rey said, then she laughed. She refused to get angry. That was  _ his _ thing. “I have gotten you everything you’ve asked for within your deadlines, no matter how ridiculous. Amilyn knows how hard I’ve been working, and nothing you say will convince her otherwise.”

 

With that Rey marched over to the door and slammed it shut, pulling out her phone to call a car as she strode down the fluorescent-flickering basement hallway. She could imagine Kylo staring after her, jaw working soundlessly on words that would not come out. The thought brought a smile to her face.

 

The entire ride back to the hotel her phone buzzed with text message after text message, but she never even unlocked the screen. Despite the weight of the mountain of unchecked texts on her phone, Rey fell into a deep and dreamless sleep as soon as she landed in bed. 

 

* * *

 

The tension in the team room was palpable when Rey came in the next morning, but she didn’t mind. She’d had her first full night of sleep in weeks, and nothing could bother her. Even the heavy rain outside, which was forecasted to continue all day, could do nothing to dampen her mood.

 

“Good morning, everyone,” she said, cheerily ignoring the bleak atmosphere.

 

Hux and Katrina gave each other sidelong glances, but did not respond to Rey’s greeting. Kylo looked up at her with burning eyes, his lips pressed together tightly to keep him from saying anything he’d regret. Rey knew he wouldn’t bring up the previous night — it was a battle he’d lost and he had nothing to gain from dragging it out again.

 

“Good morning,” he finally bit out.

 

Rey stared him down, refusing to shrink away from his intense glare, then gave him a slight smile and tip of the head before finding her seat. One side of Kylo’s mouth turned upwards in a bitter sort of smirk, then he turned towards his coworkers and started discussing the slides for the meeting that would be starting in a few hours. Rey continued working on the database architecture for Mitaka, and exchanged zero words with the First Order team from then until their meeting in the afternoon.

 

The entire First Order team left the team room to attend the meeting, and Rey finally sent off the info to Mitaka shortly after her consultant counterparts left. Without the consultants looming over her, Rey felt free to take some time to relax for the first time in forever. She read a couple of movie reviews, checked a few of her favorite blogs, then texted Finn.

 

_ Unbelievable blowup with Supreme Leader last night. Now I think he’s scared of me. -Rey _

 

_ Good for you! He definitely had it coming. You’re not in trouble or anything, right? -Finn _

 

_ I don’t think so… Besides, if he tries to complain I know Amilyn will back me up. I’ve seriously been bending over backwards for these guys. -Rey _

 

_ Well regardless, if things get bad you can always just quit. Have you looked at any of those jobs I sent you? -Finn _

 

_ No, not yet. Been too busy! >< Are you really thinking of leaving Resistance? -Rey _

 

_ It’s Empire now, remember? And yeah, I’m really thinking about it. You should too. -Finn _

 

_ I don’t know, I’ve really liked working there, and I wouldn’t want to move… -Rey _

 

_ Rey, you’re super talented! The work you do at Resistance has been great, but there’s so much more out there for you. You should really think about it. -Finn _

 

_ I will… -Rey _

 

Rey set her phone down on the desk, the ellipses on her last text revealing too much about the sincerity of her attempts to consider life outside of Resistance. Leaving Bakersfield, going to college, having a high-paying, stable job — all of these things were so much beyond what she had ever hoped for herself. It felt vain and ungrateful to consider moving on. Like what she had already accomplished was not enough.

 

Too soon Rey’s time to herself ended, and Kylo, Hux, and Phasma arrived back in the team room. Their mood could only be described as subdued. Kylo set his bag on the table and addressed Rey without looking up from his notebook.

 

“Rey, they liked the data for NA, but they asked for it from the other regions as well. Do you think you could get us that data tonight?” he said.

 

A request instead of a demand, for once. Rey could read the effort it was taking Kylo to be civil in the tightness of his shoulders, so she decided she should reward him for his restraint and be accomodating.

 

“That should be doable. I’ll get started right away.”

 

“Thank you,” he said, still never raising his head.

 

It wouldn’t take too long to get the data for the other regions if she focused, and Rey had no desire to stay late, so Rey immediately got to work. Everyone in the room was completely absorbed in their work, so the consistent hum of the air conditioner was the only soundtrack to their efforts. At around seven at night, the soundtrack was interrupted by a dull, cracking sound, and Rey started.

 

“What was that?” she said.

 

Hux looked up, slightly alarmed.

 

“Thunder,” Katrina said simply. “The storm tonight is supposed to be pretty serious.”

 

“Amazing that we could hear it down here in the basement,” Rey mused.

 

“Well I think that is my cue to leave,” Hux said as he began packing up his bag. “I have no desire to be stuck here in a storm.”

 

Phasma nodded her head in agreement and also gathered up her things.

 

“Are you coming, Ren?” Phasma asked, but Kylo just shook his head.

 

“Snoke wanted these slides tonight,” he said simply.

 

Katrina just shrugged, then she and Hux left together. Tempting as the thought of following them and returning to a hot bath and a soft bed was, Rey returned to her analysis. She was pretty close to finishing those regions for Kylo, and she’d rather just do it now than try to finish after going back to her hotel room.

 

“Aren’t you going too?” Kylo asked her after a long, silent pause.

 

“Well, I thought I’d get you the region data you asked for before leaving.”

 

Kylo just nodded, no word of thanks, and continued working. Rey couldn’t help but notice the bags under his eyes, dark shadows on his already unnaturally pale face. While she had gone to sleep last night, he had probably stayed up most of the night, and she knew the rest of the week had afforded him similarly little sleep. Perhaps sleep deprivation was contributing to his relatively tolerable mood; he was simply too tired to be angry.

 

Two hours passed before Rey finished the data pull, which was frustrating. It really shouldn't have taken that long, but Rey had long since learned that  _ everything  _ took longer than you’d think. She finally finished all she needed to do at a few minutes past nine. She combined her results, wrote some notes on how to interpret them, then sent the files to Kylo. All outstanding requests taken care of, Rey stood from the computer chair that had been her home for the past eight hours or so, and made for the door. She was about to leave the team room when some flicker of sympathy, or pity, or perhaps her grandfather’s voice in the back of her head prompted her to pause.

 

“Kylo, are you ready to head out for the night?” Rey asked from the doorframe.

 

“Not quite yet, just a few more slides…” Kylo said, his voice trailing, growing uncharacteristically slack.

 

Rey rounded back on Kylo, putting hands on hips.

 

“Kylo, it’s nine at night, and you can’t have gotten more than two hours of sleep last night. Or the night before. Any work you do now is bound to be sloppy, and it will ruin your productivity tomorrow. Get some sleep,” she said in her best schoolteacher voice. She liked to think it also kind of sounded like a Mom voice, but she wouldn’t really know.

 

Kylo looked up at Rey, and Rey could see the protest rise in his throat then stall at his lips. He just stared at Rey for a long moment, then blinked very, very slowly.

 

“...You’re right,” he said hoarsely, “I think I’m falling asleep right now, to be honest.”

 

“OK, then. Let’s go. Up and at ‘em.”

 

Rey waited politely while Kylo slowly gathered his things, extreme exhaustion making his normally precise movements slow and sleepy, then they made their way together down the hallway and to the elevator. Rey usually liked to take the stairs, but since Kylo had his suitcase with him and it was several floors up to get to the main lobby, she was OK with compromising.

 

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Kylo spoke, sounding considerably less sleepy than he had ten minutes ago. The walk to the elevator must have woke him up at least a little.

 

“Why do you call me Kylo?” he asked in an oddly soft voice. “That’s not my name.”

 

Rey considered for a moment, then shrugged.

 

“I don’t know, I guess because that’s what Hux calls you. But Kyle isn’t your real name either, is it?” she said, and as soon as the words came out of her mouth she wasn’t sure why they had. She’d always been a little too loose-lipped when tired.

 

“What?” Kylo said sharply, now seeming fully awake.

 

Rey stuttered a little, not sure what kind of land mine she might have just walked over.

 

“Oh, well... Someone told me your real name was Ben.”

 

Why was this elevator so slow? Kylo was giving her the most inscrutable look. Rey wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but knowing Kylo it was probably some variation on anger. She definitely did not want him to know that she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Snoke all those months ago.

 

“That name-” he started, but before he could finish the thought, the light above their heads flickered briefly, then died, and the elevator lurched to a stop.

 

Rey stood frozen in the near-darkness of the halted elevator, her brain slowly catching up to what was happening around her.

 

“I-is the elevator stuck? Did the lights go out?” Rey said, feeling small and frightened.

 

“I think so. The storm must have knocked over a power line or something,” Kylo’s voice floated over to her through the blackness.

 

“But this is a huge industrial building! They must have a backup generator or a bunch of different power lines-”

 

“-The whole town must be out,” Kylo said, growing impatient with her panic. Of course Kylo would be impatient with  _ her  _ when the were  _ trapped in an elevator _ .

 

“Ok,” Rey said, trying to regulate her breathing. “Ok. We’re trapped. The elevator is stuck.”

 

“Clearly,” Kylo said dryly.

 

“Ok, I really don’t have time for your attitude right now. I do not like enclosed spaces. This is kind of a nightmare scenario for me,” Rey said.

 

Rey could hear rustling coming from Kylo beside her, then light from his phone illuminated the dark elevator. He moved over towards the elevator console and pressed the call button. It rang seven, eight, nine times, then fell silent. Rey felt her breath growing shallower and tried to suppress her rising panic. Kylo looked at his phone again and swore.

 

“Dammit, I don't have a signal in here. Do you?”

 

Rey pulled out her phone with fumbling fingers and checked her bars. There were no bars, but at least it didn't say “no service.” Maybe…

 

She dialed 911 and put on a mask of calm as the phone rang. During the chaos of her early years, she’d often had to school her emotions in stressful situations. She was a little out of practice, as her life had become much simpler in the past few years, but soon Rey felt the familiar control over her feelings wash over her. As long as her thoughts didn’t linger too long on the small metal prison she was currently enclosed in, she would be fine.

 

“Thank you for calling the Travis County emergency response line. We are currently experiencing high caller volume, but stay in the line and we will get to you as soon as possible,” said a pre-recorded voice from Rey’s phone. The woman sounded far too cheery for her message. 

 

Rey took a big, steadying breath and put her phone on speakerphone, then she sank to the floor of the elevator and set her phone on the ground in front of her. The tinny jazz that served as hold music was already driving her crazy, and with the storm outside who knew how long she'd have to wait before someone picked up.

 

“On hold?” Kylo asked.

 

Rey couldn't see him anymore, as he had turned his cell phone light off to save battery. Still, knowing that someone else was there with her in the dark was comforting. For the first time since meeting him, Rey was glad Kylo was there.

 

“Yeah,” Rey said. “Apparently we're not the only people in Austin inconvenienced by the storm.”

 

Kylo let out a short bark of a laugh, then turned his phone light on again.

 

“Well maybe we’re lucky and we aren’t caught between floors,” he said, and before Rey could fully understand what he meant by that, he pressed the door open button and the elevator doors parted.

 

Dim light filtered into the elevator from the hallway, now visible from a foot-tall opening at the top of the elevator. The rest of the elevator door was blocked by layers of concrete and steel. Luck was not on their side tonight, and they were indeed stopped between floors.

 

Kylo sighed and leaned into the corner opposite the elevator console.

 

“Well at least the emergency lights came on in the hallways. Now I don’t have to waste my cell phone battery,” he said.

 

“Ok. This is fine. Everything is going to be ok,” Rey muttered to herself. “Worst case scenario we wait here all night and they find us in the morning.”

 

She rested her head back on the wall of the elevator and tried to find her Zen place, then the jazzy hold music finally stopped.

 

“Nine-one-one operator, what is your emergency?”

 

Rey lunged for the phone.

 

“Hello! Hello? We're trapped in an elevator at Empire Semiconductors,” she said.

 

“Ok. Is anyone injured?”

 

“No, we're fine.”

 

“Where are you?”

 

Rey told the operator the address, as well as the location of the elevator, and answered a few more questions about their food, water, and health situation.

 

“Ok ma'am, a team of firefighters will be over there to get you out in three to four hours,” the operator said.

 

“Three to four hours!?” Rey gasped. She heard Kylo groan from the corner.

 

“I'm sorry, ma’am, but we've been receiving a lot of calls because of the storm. But you just sit tight and everything will be fine, ok ma'am?”

 

Dejected, Rey leaned forward over her knees and dropped her head.

 

“Yes, thank you.”

 

“Alright, buhbye,” the operator said before clicking the connection shut, leaving Rey alone in a metal box with Kylo Ren.

 

Rey left her head hanging between her knees and tried to center herself. After a few calming moments she grabbed her bag and set it behind her back, giving herself a slightly more comfortable wall to lean against. She nestled into the stiff bag, trying to eke some softness out of it, and settled in for a long wait. Kylo, who had been looming over in the corner of the elevator since opening the door, sat down next to her. 

 

“So…” Kylo said eventually, “who told you my name is Ben?”

 

Rey cracked an eye open and looked at him skeptically. She wasn’t really sure she wanted to talk about this, but she supposed talking with Kylo might help pass the time more quickly.

 

“Oh we're back to this now?” she said casually, figuring playing it cool was her best shot at not being found out as an eavesdropper. “I just heard Snoke call you Ben one time. Is that your real name?”

 

Kylo didn't say anything at first. He just sat there, leaned against the wall with his legs spread out in front of him. His forearms rested on his knees, and he was staring at his hands, his nervous fidgeting betraying the indecision his face refused to show.

 

“My name is Ben Solo,” he said eventually.

 

Rey’s brow furrowed, and she tried to think of where she had heard that name before. Kylo had said it with such solemn finality, like his name was a magic spell that would reveal all of his secrets to her.

 

“Solo? … Isn't there a senator with that name?” She said, the finally connecting the surname to some news story she'd read recently. “Leia Organa-Solo?”

 

Kylo didn't move, just kept staring at his hands.

 

“She's my mother.”

 

Rey let that answer sink in a little, but she knew there was something she was missing. She thought about the casual way Kylo accepted the many privileges afforded him, the way he simply expected to be obeyed. Honestly, the idea that he was the son of a Senator wasn't all that shocking. There must be something more, a piece of the puzzle she hadn’t found yet.

 

“Um, I guess that makes sense…”

 

“-You’ve never heard the news story, I guess. About me,” Kylo said.

 

“I'm not sure what you're talking about,” Rey said.

 

Kylo let out a bitter bark of laughter.

 

“Yes I suppose that makes sense. You're almost a decade younger than me, after all,” he said.

 

Rey was about to ask him how he knew how old she was, but he continued speaking before she had the chance.

 

“I was at a meet and greet event with Senator Organa-Solo. I was fourteen, and I didn’t want to be there. She insisted. Having a perfect family, being a Mom — that was all part of her brand,” he said bitterly.

 

“Some crazy guy showed up,” Kylo continued. “He didn’t like my mother’s policies, and even thought she was involved in some kind of conspiracy. Anyway, he showed up with a knife, and got really close to us before he pulled it out. He lunged for my mother, but my father pushed her out of the way. That left me, so he stabbed me.”

 

Rey gasped.

 

“Eventually one of my mother's bodyguards shot him, but by then he'd already stabbed me three times and slashed my face,” he said, running a hand down the scar across his cheek. “He died later in the hospital.”

 

“I… I… I’m so sorry. That’s terrible,” Rey said, at a loss as to what to say.

 

“It’s been fifteen years, now, so most people don’t remember it anymore, but it was pretty big news at the time. When I met new people, I started to tell them my name was Kyle Ren, just to avoid the questions. To avoid the memories. My legal name hasn’t changed, so obviously HR knows. But most of my coworkers have no idea.”

 

“I guess I can’t blame you,” Rey said, still not sure what to make of his story. How much should her estimation of him change based on a traumatic backstory? How much of his cruelty and anger could be attributed to this random act of violence that had so unjustly befallen him?

 

Kylo tilted his head and just… looked at her for a long moment. She returned his gaze with some confusion, but no hostility. She still hadn’t worked out the calculations in her head, of what she now thought of him, but Rey realized in that moment that at the very least she believed his story. It would have been a strange, oddly-specific, and easily refutable kind of thing to lie about.

 

“Don't look at me like that,” Kylo said.

 

Rey's eyes widened in surprise.

 

“Like what?” she asked.

 

“I don't want your pity. This is exactly why I usually don't tell people.”

 

Rey twisted around, reorienting herself so she was facing Kylo. She was starting to get annoyed with him. She was so close to reassessing him, to deciding he actually wasn’t that bad, and then he just had to go and sabotage it by getting angry for no reason.

 

“And why exactly did you tell me, anyway? You didn't have to,” she challenged.

 

Kylo turned his face from her, his cheeks flushing in a bright cocktail of embarrassment and anger.

 

“I don't know,” he said, fists tightening in his lap. “I thought you might understand. You're like me.”

 

Rey's jaw dropped, and she was perhaps even more surprised than when he had first told her his story.

 

“Like you? I don't see… practically  _ any way _ in which we are alike,” Rey said.

 

“You don’t?” he said, turning his head back towards her and fixing her with that intense gaze of his. “Rey, you… you’ve been through things. You’ve had a difficult life, and by all rights you shouldn’t have ended up with anything. But you’re a fighter, and no matter what people expected of you, you made your own path. I could tell, almost from when I first met you.”

 

“And so you’re saying your life has been just as hard as mine?” Rey said, the anger starting to build within her. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

 

“My life has been very different from yours,” Kylo said, leaning towards her, “But I know some of how you feel —that loneliness, that feeling of not quite fitting in, that knowledge that nobody else quite understands what you’ve been through. That fear that you’ll never be able to move on from your past.”

 

Rey moved her knees closer to her and wrapped her arms around them, growing uncomfortable with how familiar and true Kylo’s words were beginning to sound in her ears. It wasn’t possible, that they’d have anything in common. He was the son of a senator—about as close to royalty as one could get in the States—and she was the child of a pair of junkies from the middle of nowhere. And how did he seem to know so much about her life? She had never spoken with the First Order team about her childhood.

 

Kylo seemed to sense her unease, and he leaned back away from her, ceding her personal space back to her.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey said eventually, her words sounding hesitant and unconvincing, even to her.

 

“Perhaps not,” Kylo said, and Rey saw the mask that had shattered the previous evening fall securely back into place. Whatever moment of vulnerability he had shown her, it was over now, and all Rey could feel was relieved.

 

They avoided each others’ line of sight, each curling into their own corner of the elevator, and waited. Rey tried to sleep, but her mind kept whirring with all of the new information she had just received. Kylo had been attacked as a child, and had clearly been seriously traumatized by the incident. He also seemed to know a lot about her, and felt that they had much in common. This part was harder for Rey to understand, but the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if the feeling was not mutual. A heavy atmosphere filled the elevator, a completely different kind of tension from the hostility of this morning, strange and unsettling. As the hours passed, Rey began to drift in and out of sleep, and in her confused state of semi-consciousness, she imagined a thin red string wrapped around her finger. She unravelled it then wrapped it around her finger over and over again, but never followed the string to see where it led. She jerked awake as the sounds of heavy feet nearby shook her from her stupor, and the red string disappeared from her finger.

 

“Hello! Is anybody in there?” a loud voice shouted from the hallway.

 

“Yes!” Rey and Kylo croaked in unison, both already on their feet.

 

A friendly, helmeted head popped into view through the foot-high opening onto the hallway, and the fireman grinned at them.

 

“Let’s get you two out of there, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! And also Happy Galentine’s Day as well, of course. We’re starting to get into the meat of the plot here, I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know what you think! I am always open to constructive criticism. Also… yeah so things might seem a little melodramatic in this chapter but… it’s Star Wars! Of course it’s melodramatic!


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